Hominids by Robert J. Sawyer
Cover art by Donato
Published by Tor Books
Reviewed by Leigh Kimmel
There is something fascinating about the Neanderthals. A people so similar to us, yet so different, who thrived for millennia during the Ice Age, then vanished, seemingly without a trace. At first they were thought of as shambling ape-men, communicating only in grunts and gestures, hardly more than brutes. But as paleontologists have found increasing evidence of a complex culture in areas associated with the Neanderthals, it becomes possible to see them as a people much like ourselves in mental capacity, which has complicated the narrative of why they should have gone extinct so completely. And it makes it possible to speculate on what kind of world they might have created, had they survived and our ancestors gone extinct.
This novel begins in the world we know, in a Canadian salt mine where an experiment in neutrino detection is underway. Suddenly there is a sudden boom like an explosion, and the next thing the scientists know, the globe which holds the heavy water for their detector is in shards, and there is a man inside it.
Alarmed, the scientists hurry down to rescue him. He is nearly drowned, and clearly in need of medical help. But once the immediate considerations of his safety are dealt with, they begin to wonder how a complete stranger, and particularly one of such striking visage, with massive brow ridges and a chinless jaw, could have gotten past everyone and into their heavy water vessel. Heavy water that was on loan from the government, and is now spilled all over everything and contaminated.
At that point the narrative jumps to a world very different from the one we know. A world where Ponter Boddit and Adikor Huld are getting a good start on the morning. Ponter's thinking about how fortunate he is to have Adikor's support in the wake of the loss of his woman-mate Klast, and how it would be very hard to find another woman-mate (not that anyone could ever replace Klast) because most women who've lost their man-mate are elderly and wouldn't be interested in so young a man. In this brief scene we learn some interesting bits about their culture, from the fact that they count in moons rather than years to the fact that the franchise is restricted to elders. We also learn about their dining customs, with some strong suggestions that they're not an agricultural people.
Then it's off to work for them, to an abandoned salt mine (sound familiar?) where they're doing experiments in quantum computing. They're having some trouble with one of the processing units vibrating, so Ponter decides to go down into the computer room and steady it. And then something goes wrong, and the next thing he knows he's struggling not to drown in water that seems to have come from nowhere.
Now we the readers know what is going on -- but none of our protagonists, human or Neanderthal, know what's going on. However, Ponter does have one huge advantage in establishing communications -- his Companion, an implanted AI device which, in his home universe, would constantly transmit imagery to his community's alibi archive, a system of centralized sousveillance that also has mundane uses such as recovering accidentally erased equations from a chalkboard. Ponter's Companion is able to sort out English far more rapidly than Ponter would have been able to do by simple point, name and memorize. As a result, Ponter's Companion can serve as a translator within a few hours, and within a few days is able to handle complex abstract concepts. Suddenly the humans are surprised to discover that they are in fact dealing with a scientist on a level with themselves. And then the genetic studies come in and reveal that he is a Neanderthal, which goes a long way to explain why he speaks no known language and is not in any database, anywhere.
Which raises some thorny legal questions. First, is he a person in the eyes of the law? And once that is settled in the affirmative, what should his immigration status be? He claims to have been born and raised in this area -- but in a completely different world, one which branched away in prehistory.
Meanwhile, Adikor has his own legal problems to deal with. With Ponter vanished, suspicion of foul play immediately falls upon him. Many years ago, when both of them were young and brash, they got into a heated argument and Adikor punched Ponter, badly injuring him. (Neanderthals are tremendously strong, and can kill with a blow -- contact sports and martial arts are unthinkable for them). Because it was demonstrated that his rash action was the result of an imbalance in his neurotransmitters that made it more difficult to control his emotions, he was allowed to have treatment for it, and he has gone on to live a normal life. However, that bit of history makes it easy to suspect him.
Suddenly he is having to defend himself in a very alien justice system, where individuals bring complaints against the accused, and the justice system exists primarily to adjudicate. It also depends heavily upon the alibi archive -- and while they were in the depths of the salt mine, neither man's Companion was transmitting data, so Adikor has only his own word, which is suspect, and the absence of a body. If he cannot demonstrate his innocence, he and his closest relatives will all be sterilized to ensure that his antisocial traits cannot be perpetuated into future generations.
The further things go, the more certain he becomes that the secret lies within the salt mine -- but he's forbidden from going there because it's considered a crime scene. Finally he hatches a desperate plan that involves gaining access to his personal alibi archive and making sure it can't record his trip.
Meanwhile, Ponter's trying to sort out this strange new world into which he's fallen. He's very much a fish out of water, in ways that make me think of Shevek in Ursula K. LeGuin's The Dispossessed, or Michael Valentine Smith in Robert A Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange Land. However, he's finding a guide and friend in Mary Vaughan, the geneticist who was raped in one of the early chapters, and who is extremely skittish about men as a result. For various reasons, Ponter's Neanderthal maleness doesn't send off the same signals as a human male's body, and she's able to feel more comfortable in his presence. As it looks less and less likely that he's ever going to be able to get home, they began to develop a closeness that goes far beyond Shevek and Vea in the Dispossessed.
The ending is rather bittersweet, with both reunion and parting. The final scene is Mary looking up at the Northern Lights (this is northern Canada, so auroras are a far larger presence in the sky), wondering if Ponter is looking at the same auroral display in his own world, or if butterfly effects mean a different space-weather situation. It's an ending that would be completely satisfactory for a standalone novel, but which very much leaves open the possibility that the portal can be reopened in the future, perhaps multiple times, maybe even permanently.
It's a mark of the power of Robert J. Sawyer's prose that the Neanderthal society is so vivid that it's only after the book is set aside that one really starts thinking about the issues with the world building. Could the society that's described -- small communities, no agriculture -- have actually developed a technological society at the level we see? How would they have moved from stone tools to copper, bronze and ultimately iron? How could they have developed glass or ceramics? How could they have made the leap to industrial technologies?
And even as the mind begins to pick at the culture and technology of the Neanderthals as portrayed in this novel, we find ourselves wanting to find more. And happy to discover that yes, there are sequels.
Buy Hominids from Amazon.com
Review posted March 12, 2021
